We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
ETHEL TEARE-AND THAT FLIRTATIOUS WAY
By
CECILIA
^ >v MOUNT
/ v
HARD-WORKIX (
press-agent.
banging away at a ^ typewriter in the New York office of the Kale m Company, had
all but exhausted his dictionary of synonyms. “Vivacious,” “sprightly,” “captivating,” “alluring,” “animated," “joyous” — all these, and many more, had been plucked and applied to Ethel Teare. He had even descended to the comparative tameness of “peppery” and “enthusiastic.”
Then he emitted a sudden laugh of glee. “I’ve got it,” he shouted. “Just the word that describes her. The one adjective that pictures that dashing, enchanting personality. ‘Flirtatious’ — that’s it.” With unholy joy he wrote it over and over again, in advertisements, news stories, circulars and what-nots. He stalked the office with the air of a discoverer.
But little did he reckon the full
effect of his deed. Far out in California, at the Glendale studio, a pair of flashing eyes read the statement, and in a second the studio was a flurry of excitement. When a director with visions of all sorts of calamities finally calmed the little tempest down, he heard a sad tale.
Between gasps and near-sobs, it sounded something like this. “That horrid man — I’m not flirtatious — what does he mean by saying such things — I’d like to pull his hair — flirtatious, indeed !”
Such was the scene when I arrived at the studio to keep an appointment with Miss Teare, for an interview for Motion Picture Classic readers. For a moment I thought that my quest was in vain, but in the quiet of the dressing-room, a few minutes later, Miss Teare turned a smiling face to me, and I saw that the storm had passed.
“I suppose I am very foolish to get excited over it,” she said, “but it really isn’t very pleasant to be called flirtatious. You know me. I’m not at all flirtatious, am I ?”
Appealed to, I sought refuge between tact and flight. “But,” I faltered, “you really cant blame him. You — you look that way. He just meant to describe your peculiar fascination and charm.”
A cheery laugh and a faint blush were my first reply. Then Miss Teare went on : “T’ll overlook that flatterv.
{ Twenty-five)